By Kirk Deeter

These days, a lot of the conservation-focused press for fly fishing revolves around dams; specifically, how removing certain dams has helped to restore migratory waterways for native salmon and steelhead.

No doubt, some dams have taken a major toll on fish populations, and getting rid of those dams is a good thing. But let's call it like it is: Minus a great number of bottom-release dams throughout the country — dams that release steady cool currents year-round that trout and the bugs they eat love so much — and trout fishing as we know it in America simply wouldn't exist. Most of those massive 10-pound trophy rainbows we like to catch and photograph wouldn't be there for the catching. Those 30-fish days in the middle of November? Probably not going to happen. 

By Kirk Deeter

You know what we don't see nearly enough of in fly fishing these days? Products that actually work better than advertised. We're promised everything from rods that will seemingly cast themselves to waders that wear like footie pajamas, and rarely does the performance really, truly live up to the billing.

SmithFly, an Ohio-based manufacturer of modular fishing gear, on the other hand, over-delivers. From waist packs and vests to boat bags, the best way to describe this stuff is to say it's born of a "tactical" influence: Super rugged and extremely functional. At first glance, they're perhaps not what the "fashionista" angler has in mind.

By Kirk Deeter

Thanks to all you Fly Talk readers who chimed in with guesses on what type of fish this is, where it was caught, and what it ate.  To my surprise, many of you nailed the fish right away.  It is indeed an arapaima.  A good number of you also got the country right.  We caught it in the jungle in Guyana, near the Rewa River.  But nobody until the very end (and she is a ringer who no doubt heard me talking about this adventure on ESPN radio in Denver Saturday morning) got the fly pattern right.

By Kirk Deeter

Most of you who follow FlyTalk might realize by now that Romano and I are both shameless streamer junkies. We'll pound the banks from a boat, trying to turn big fish with blind casts, but we also like to wade and sight-fish streamers in low, clear water. Big flies catch big fish, to be sure. Yet in clear water, you have to make the right presentation for streamers to work well. While I've learned many valuable tips from streamer gurus like Kelly Galloup, who said, "You have to dictate the action, and not wait for something to happen," the greatest streamer lesson I ever learned didn't happen on a trout river, and it didn't even involve a true streamer fly.